According the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) mean equivalised disposable household income (EDHI) in 2017–2018 was AUD 1,062 per week. After adjusting to 2017–2018 dollars, this has not changed significantly from 2015–2016 (AUD 1,046 per week).
As a business model, the shift from advertising to subscription-based provision is a clear trend, and has arguably been accelerated by Covid-19.
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report: Australia 2020 notes the following headline trends in the Australian market for subscription news (Fisher et al., 2020):
- the number of ongoing news subscribers has doubled since 2016;
- consumers most interested in politics are most likely to pay for online news (28%);
- those valuing independence in journalism are more willing to pay (18%);
- those who prefer news that shares their viewpoint are more likely to pay for news (25%), compared with those who prefer impartial news (14%);
- and news consumers are not so concerned about paywalls.
However, overall, Australians remain relatively unwilling to pay for online news (14%), despite the trend to the steady emergence of subscription as the way to pay, if they choose to. The Digital News Report: Australia 2020 found that willingness to pay for news appears to be closely related to interest in politics as well as interest in and access to news (see Figure 6).
Source: Graph from Fisher et al., 2020: 86
